


Know Your Light Remains

by CourierNinetyTwo, hergreywarden



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Contains Illustrations, Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 00:19:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17415368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourierNinetyTwo/pseuds/CourierNinetyTwo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hergreywarden/pseuds/hergreywarden
Summary: Hawke faces off against the Nightmare to escape the Fade, but how much of her survives on the way back home? Art done by HerGreyWarden.





	Know Your Light Remains

**Author's Note:**

> For ImprobableIntellect!

While immeasurable--and perhaps inconsequential for many---it turned out that fear had a limit.

At the cost of weeks inside the Fade, Hawke learned it. There was only so much fighting, so much running, that a body could survive before the heart of terror simply looked like another enemy to defeat. She slept in blinks between battles, sword always in hand, and learned quickly that certain things in this magical hellscape were, in fact, edible. What she wouldn't have given for a real mage to be here, someone who knew the threads of this place and could wrench them apart.

Except that might have been Bethany. It could have been another person Hawke wouldn't survive the loss of. That was why she had stayed behind to begin with; what loss was a warrior compared to a Warden or the Inquisitor? She was a champion, sure, but Kirkwall didn't matter much in this particular scheme of things. The bitter irony of that, with Corypheus floating around like he owned the place.

What if he could have been stopped there? Maybe the fact that she hadn't managed it then was why she was here now, paying a price compounded with interest. The notion of debt made Athenril's face flash through Hawke's mind, and she bit back a curse. Hidden against a column forged of raw flesh and tortured spirit, she couldn't afford the noise. Not today, when she was hunting.

There were fewer spiders now. As she strangled each individual fear and looked them in the eye, they withered. Hawke knew how to stare them down until they starved now, scrabbling around her mind and searching for sustenance. Staying so numb was exhausting, but the only real defense she had.

She darted to another column, catching a glimpse of Nightmare in the distance. It was still a bulbous, crawling thing, but to Hawke's eye, a bit more gaunt than when they first met. While fear of a new Blight might keep pouring through into the Fade, the demon used its little minions to shepherd sweet morsels from trapped and terrified wanderers, and she had denied the Nightmare such niceties.

At times, her sabotage drove it to sheer rage, splitting and reforming into any number of horrifying shapes that morphed the world around it. Hawke survived the outbursts half-buried in rotten earth, toying with the bracelet tucked under her gauntlet until the unholy shrieking stopped. Even lesser demons had stopped sneaking into the Nightmare's boundaries, for they were just as likely to be devoured as a new mage.

All she had to do was kill the damn thing. 'All', like it was as simple as blade to flesh, but Hawke trusted her sword through Ostagar and Lothering, through every bloody and foolish gambit in Kirkwall, down to the Deep Roads and against the Arishok. It drove the final blow on Meredith and Orsino both, and even gave Corypheus a good knocking about. Without it, she wouldn't have even made it to the Inquisitor, thanks to the chaos strewn across Thedas.

So what was an avatar of endless fear in comparison? Just another lout in the Champion's way, really.

In her worst moments--oh, and Andraste above, there were some when Hawke wanted to fall on that trusted blade and be past this--she still had Athenril. They were small memories, but they had to be, as not to catch the Nightmare's attention. She couldn't hold onto anything more powerful in the Fade, like their first kiss, like the first time they pushed past each other's stubbornness to get _those_ words out, but Hawke comforted herself with glimpses of Athenril's smile, sharp and cold. Her eyes were always warm when she looked Hawke's way.

She was weak. In comparison to the first day in the Fade, Hawke knew that she'd lost weight and the keenest edge of her senses, buoyed to the surface by adrenaline and the most dire, primal urge to survive. That had a limit too, and soon enough, she'd hit that wall and be unable to climb over or scratch her way through. Athenril would have given her hell for that kind of thinking, but Hawke missed the ribbing almost as much as she missed the elf's face.

It wasn't over, though. The Nightmare was just as weak, weak as it could ever be.

"Now or never, Hawke," she muttered under her breath.

Every step into its lair sent Hawke's heart crashing against the inside of her chest, but the beat tapered down when she saw the demon itself. Sluggish and hungry, with its spiked, chitinous back facing her way, the Nightmare looked more like an overwrought crab stuffed into a spider than any real threat.

She still hated spiders, but she wasn't afraid of them anymore.

Hawke pushed off her back foot and lunged, swinging with all the force she could summon into a spindly leg. The sword cleaved right through, so clean that it took a blink for the limb to sever and surrender to gravity. With a shriek, the Nightmare whirled around, smashing its segmented forearms into the ground where Hawke was just a breath before. Even with its many compound eyes, it couldn't see in every direction at once.

Swinging around another pillar to regain her momentum, Hawke slid on her knees into another heavy cut. A second leg cracked in half, wobbling furiously, and she rolled over one shoulder to duck behind a broad column. The Nightmare screamed and struggled to find its balance, weight bearing forward on each arm to keep steady.

"Astrid Hawke," it hissed, stalking a slow circle around the earth. The demon was damn close, but hadn't seemed to notice her--yet. "You think yourself fearless, mm? That no terror can take your spirit?"

When the Nightmare's voice warped, twisting high and soft, Hawke braced herself with a deep breath.

"What do you think has happened to me in your absence, sister?" Bethany's tone was fraught, agony etched into every syllable. "The Circles are in rebellion, and the Wardens bleed for Corypheus. You left me alone, just like you left Carver. And Mother."

Hawke's throat tightened, but that was all. Bethany wasn't here in the Fade; she was fighting out in Thedas like her life depended on it. Even after what happened with Clarent and Erimond, Hawke had faith in that.

A rumble of displeasure erupted from low in the Nightmare's cavernous chest, and its voice changed again. "Astrid."

Fuck, the demon sounded like Athenril.

"You left a trail of blood from Kirkwall to here, little bird." It laughed, and Hawke shuddered; she missed that laugh so much. "I wish you would have been with me when every faction you pissed on came to my doorstep. They were looking for you, but anyone's life would do when it came down to it."

The Nightmare started to cough and choke until the only thing Hawke could hear was Athenril gagging on her own blood, beaten within an inch of her life. There were only so many escape plans, so many second chances, and Athenril had given up so many of them to her already. Hawke's eyes burned with unspent tears.

She lunged out from behind the column with her sword braced like a pike. It drove her sword deep into the Nightmare's underbelly, sinking to the hilt. Her grip changed, tight despite the sweat soaking her palms, and Hawke dragged the blade down the demon's stomach, ripping into it from underneath. One thrashing leg dashed her on the side of the skull, but it was a glancing blow. Pushing past the dizziness, she yanked her weapon out at the end of its carapace, venomous ichor dripping along the blade and making it sizzle.

With a hefty chop, another of the Nightmare's legs buckled, and Hawke's eyes went wide. The demon's blood was eating at the metal of her sword, but it also sliced through the Nightmare's chiton like butter.

"What are you afraid of, demon?" She spat, cutting a segment off the massive arm that plunged downward, trying to impale her. "That your master will fail? That you'll shrink and starve until there's nothing of you left?"

"I am fear _itself_ _!_ " The Nightmare roared, every horrible eye leveled her way. "I will rise again and again! You are doomed to wander this place forever, and I will feast off your despair until you are a husk begging to die."

Hawke had learned there was a time and place for diplomacy. Sometimes words really were the better option rather than running someone through, but for every rule, there was an exception. In this case, a demon spider gorged on the Blight certainly qualified. If the creature wasted time talking, it was afraid of what her sword could still do.

The finish on it crackled and popped like the edge was covered with burning oil, producing an unimaginable odor. She held her breath and came around the front of the Nightmare, watching it scrabble on demolished legs to try and catch up with her. One forearm shot forward, and Hawke waited until the last second to dodge. Rolling under the arch of the demon's limbs, she shoved the entire length of her blade through the Nightmare's maw and up into the soft floor of its skull.

It screamed. The sound wore like sandpaper against her last tenacious thread of sanity, but Hawke held on, refusing to let the sword slip out. Ichor spilled down her arms as the Nightmare bled out, thrashing to try and free itself. Yet all the demon did was cut itself against her blade, over and over until there was nothing left inside its head but those endless damned eyes.

With a death rattle that made Hawke shudder, the Nightmare collapsed forward, and she freed her weapon before its weight crushed her hands. Desperate to save the blade, she wiped it clean on every part of the demon that was close, grimacing at the toxic green sheen that lingered on the metal. At least enough of it was left to swing.

Wary that the fight was not yet over, Hawke took slow, shuffling steps backwards, keeping her sword at the ready. Yet the Nightmare did not move or twitch, and there was no idle air in the Fade to make a puppet out of the demon with a passing breeze. From a distance it looked empty and small, just another heap of flesh once called a monster.

She lowered her blade and laughed. The sound strained her lungs after so many days of forced silence, but what else was there to do after surmounting the impossible? Hawke laughed until her stomach ached, gasping for breath as adrenaline drained from her blood. Exhaustion lay across her body like an iron shroud, but that was alright. It wasn't the first time.

Now she just had to find a rift and get the hell out of here.

Even the thought stole the last bit of strength from Hawke's limbs. She collapsed onto a nearby rock, ignoring the screech of metal from her sword in protest. The weight of the weapon balanced against the stone well enough.

Hawke yanked off her right gauntlet, groaning under her breath at the force it took to pry free sweat-soaked hide. Yet her prize was still intact underneath: a bracelet of feathers carved from bone--a gift from Athenril. Gingerly easing the bracelet off her wrist, Hawke tugged the gauntlet back on, not wanting to be caught unarmored by some neophyte demon. Once it clicked into place again, she held up the thin leather cord and managed a weary smile.

"You told me I was a fool to leave, and you were right," Hawke said softly, "but I would have been intolerable if I stayed. The work needed doing. You understand that."

Maybe there was more of her duty left to the world, but Hawke wanted to go home. The Wardens and the Inquisitor could bring the fight to Corypheus, because as far as she was concerned, spilling her blood all over that particular battlefield would only make things worse. Andraste knew it hadn't helped the first time.

For a while, she didn't have the energy to do more than play with the feathers between her fingertips, recalling the night that Athenril had gifted her the bracelet. It would have seemed casual--they were romantically cat-and-mouse a lot longer than they should have been--except there was no high holiday, no birthday or other excuse.

_"It's been an age," Athenril said, draping the trinket over Hawke's chest. The carved tips brushed her skin like a caress. "Shouldn't everyone know you're mine?"_

_Hawke bared her teeth in a grin. "And how is everyone going to know you're mine?"_

_"All of Kirkwall knows that, much to my chagrin." The elf squinted at her, which is the look Athenril got when she was trying not to smile. "Anyway, it's feathers for a Hawke. Aren't I clever?"_

Of course Athenril was clever, but Hawke knew it was more than a show of wit. They were the same style of feathers that decorated the right side of the smuggler's armor, a pattern Hawke had never seen on any other elf. Athenril never said anything about being Dalish, and spit the word _alienage_ whenever it had to come out of her mouth, so if the symbolism possessed any particular meaning, such was a secret that even Hawke wasn't privy to.

It didn't matter. The feathers meant enough to her on their own.

"I hope you haven't gone anywhere," Hawke whispered. Her throat tightened, and the well of fear she'd stoppered for days threatened to burst open. "I hope I haven't lost you."

She wept, but she hated crying, so Hawke got to her feet and started walking, if only to have something else to focus on beyond the tears cutting streaks through the blood and dirt smudged across her scarred face. Thanks to the Inquisitor, Hawke could spot a rift a mile out, and if there was one good thing about all this Anchor nonsense, it was that the Veil couldn't seem to help ripping itself open these days.

Hours passed. Hawke had slowed to a limping pace, dragging her boots with every step, before a sickly flicker of green appeared. Who knew where it would spit her out, but at this point, there was no reason to care. She leaned on her sword like a cane, keeping Athenril's bracelet clutched tight in the palm of her other hand, and hobbled the last few forsaken feet before shoving her way through the rift.

She landed face-first in a mound of grass. Hawke spit and grumbled, rolling over onto her back, then cursed a storm when sunlight poured into her eyes. There was no real illumination in the Fade beyond magic's occasional glow, and the pleasant balm of a cloudless day was blinding now.

"Hey!" An unfamiliar voice shouted.

Getting back to her feet felt like bench pressing a dragon, but Hawke managed it with shaking legs. She narrowed her eyes against the sun, and realized the woman who had yelled at her was a scout wearing the Inquisition's colors.

"Wait. You're no demon." The dwarf frowned. "I recognize you. You were with the Herald of Andraste."

After the haze faded from the corners of her vision, Hawke recognized her too. "Harding, right? Lace."

Harding's frown transformed into a smile of disbelief. "Want to explain to me why you're not dead as everyone's been saying?"

"Not really." With a look back over one shoulder at the rift lingering in the air, she shivered. "But you're in a pretty good mood considering the hell Corypheus and his army were putting us through before I got dropped into the Fade."

Bright green eyes shot wide. "That's because Corypheus is dead."

"Dead?" Hawke repeated.

When Harding nodded, a ragged laugh escaped her throat. It was just like her fit beyond the Veil, astonishment and exhaustion shaken together until something loud spilled out. Hawke wheezed by the time it was over, half-bent against her own knees.

"We took him on at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, and the Inquisitor struck the killing blow." Harding gestured to the rift. "I've been on alert for those, so they can be sealed up for good this time."

If she had waited another day or two to face the Nightmare, the Inquisitor might have closed her only path back into the real world. No one would have jumped back across to go searching for a corpse, if that's what they believed was true.

"Where am I anyway?" Hawke turned a full circle as she asked, trying to pick out any nearby landmarks.

"Bottom of the Hinterlands," the scout said with a small smile. "Welcome back to Ferelden, Hawke."

To think these lands had been home once. Now they were nothing more than territory, someone else's concern. Kirkwall's chains wouldn't let go so easily; no, they'd rusted shut around her a long time ago.

She missed her mabari, though.

"How about I help you back to camp?" Harding offered a hand. "We'll get some food in you, and you can rest until the Inquisitor gets here."

Gratitude was a hard thing to wrestle with, but Hawke knew she had to push past her gut urge to agree. "The food I'll take, if you don't mind it. But as for staying..."

"It's no trouble," the dwarf insisted.

"I'm always trouble," Hawke countered with a weak grin. "But the Inquisition's not done, is it? Everyone's going to keep pushing forward. Fade this, Black City that. And whatever that odd mage of yours was up to."

Harding nodded. "There's a lot more to what happened than Corypheus."

The Inquisition was like a storm, sweeping up everyone who came near it. Maybe it was safe in the eye, fighting side-by-side with the Herald of Andraste, but everyone could end up exactly as she was now: left for dead, tossed out on the other side after losing almost everything. Hawke had no plans to make that gambit twice.

"I have to get back to Kirkwall." It wasn't a lie, really; seeing Athenril again was one of the only guiding lights she had left. "Heard anything about Bethany on your way here? The Warden Hawke?"

"Nothing except what Varric told me about her being shipped away from the other Wardens," Harding admitted, mouth tightening into a thin line. "No one's seen her since all that fell apart. Sorry."

Better for Bethany to be as far from this mess as possible, even if there was no way to see her. "Don't worry about it. Give me a chance to eat and I'll be out of your way."

The scout's face tightened with concern, but she walked Hawke back to her small camp on a hill anyway. Between bites of rations and sips from a waterskin, Hawke answered questions about the Fade--and the state of her sword--in as few words as possible, trying to eat as much as her body could stand.

She wasn't even hungry, strangely. Hanging so long on the razor's edge of survival must have killed the urge, but Hawke's head cleared by the time she finished the waterskin. That much was necessary, and when Harding topped her up, she made sure to not have her mouth full while thanking the scout.

"What do you want me to tell the Inquisitor?" Harding asked, eyes on Hawke's wrist as she slipped the bracelet back on under her gauntlet. It had been in her grasp the whole meal, but the other woman was too polite to ask about it.

"I think that's up to you." Hawke tugged the clasp on her gauntlet until it caught. "I could ask you to lie, but you're not wearing my sigil on your shoulder. Just don't give them any idea that I plan on coming back."

The dwarf tilted her head. "We really could use you, Hawke. Every sword matters in a fight like this."

"That's the trick of it, Harding." She stood up, grateful that her legs still had enough strength to do so. At the next village, she'd scrape together the coins for a room and get a real night of sleep. "Everyone can always use me. Until there's nothing left to use."

Athenril was the only one who ever let her be selfish. Hawke never had to be a champion or legacy with her lover, only a person with hungers that yearned to be fed. Of course, they traded off each other's desires--that was the fair and right way of it--but Athenril gave her permission to be who she was, with no ranks or projection between them.

"I know it probably feels like the Inquisition abandoned you-" Harding began.

"Because they did," Hawke interjected. "It was the right thing to do, and I went along with that decision, but I was left behind because I was the one that the Inquisition could afford to lose. Now I'm lost. Got it?"

The scout let her go without further argument.

It took a while to find an actual road, rather than the dirt paths scraped into the ground by merchants and soldiers, but Hawke stumbled into a squat little hamlet by sundown. A farmer offered a thatch of hay to sleep on in return for hauling water and feed in the morning, and Hawke accepted in a heartbeat. The hay smelled like hounds, which carried her off to the best rest she'd had since Lothering--the night before the darkspawn came.

A blacksmith sharpened her sword west of Ostagar, and two women in a caravan outside the Brecilian Forest offered to wash everything she was wearing. Hawke felt almost human again by the time she reached Amaranthine, seeking out a ship that would sail to Kirkwall. The ports were flush with rumors about the Inquisition, and thankfully, she wasn't mentioned in a single one of them.

"Kirkwall, mm?" Stroking the silver hairs in his beard, the captain sighed. "I suppose I could stop along the way. City still isn't like it used to be, though. You may not find what you're looking for."

"I will," Hawke answered brusquely.

If she didn't, then what was the damn point of surviving all this?

The closer she got to Kirkwall, the more Athenril was on her mind. Hawke thought about her every morning when she helped with the ropes and sails, new callouses building over the rough patches from wielding a sword. She fell asleep in a net-turned-hammock thinking about the other woman, stroking the bracelet around her wrist when memories of the Fade stole away any chance of rest.

Years before, Hawke had seen the Twins of Kirkwall approach, their massive bronze bodies guarding either side of the narrow path towards the Gallows. The proof of being _somewhere_ , away from the Blight and back to land, was such a relief she had almost wept. Now they were familiar faces, old and tarnished, and she couldn't feel much at all. Any concept of 'home' was shattered long ago, thanks to Darkspawn and Templars, with its fragments ground into dust by politics and cold-blooded murder.

But Athenril was here. She had to be here.

The Gallows was a mess. Entire swathes of the fortress were cut off thanks to the presence of red Lyrium, which Hawke knew could only be stripped out slivers at a time, lest the exposure corrupt whoever removed it. She'd had enough of the stuff for a lifetime, and joined the other arrivals by the only open gate, waiting to be processed by the Viscount's officials.

As far as Hawke could tell, the place was still being run by Cavin. There were a lot less Templars around than she was used to, but most of them had probably run off or been run through after everything had happened.

"'ey, you look like a capable one," a whisper carried from her left.

She glanced towards the shadows, picking out the shape of a young man. An elf, but not one she knew. "I might be. Why?"

"Paperwork could keep you stuck for weeks outside the gate, pissing off the harbor and bargaining yourself for bread." The elf shook his head, like it was so very unfair. "But do a job or two for me, and I'll get you to the other side in a month, max."

Hawke barely held in a laugh. She stepped out of line and into the dark, towering over the elf with one hand on the hilt of her sword. "Does Athenril know you're feeding off her territory like this, greenhorn?"

"Athenril's my boss, you mouthy-" He stopped, eyes going wide. "Oh, fuck me. You're _Hawke_ , aren't you?"

She was alive.

Hawke's throat tightened, and it was all she could do not to start crying in front of a smuggler who probably only knew her from the few ragged pieces of Champion armor that had stayed intact. "Supposedly, yeah."

"Shit!" The elf darted off before she could say another word, spitting curses until he was out of her line of sight.

Hawke groaned. Even with the good news, his panic left her without a good way to get in through the gate, and there wasn't a chance that anyone would step aside to let her get back to her original spot in line. Maybe she could bully one of the Viscount's attendants into sending Cavin a personal message.

Or just maybe, the old smuggling tunnels still worked.

She found one buried behind a pair of suspiciously empty crates, and took in a deep breath before climbing through. It was riddled with dust and cobwebs, but the hole in the wall stretched on, and there was a tiny glimmer of torchlight in the distance. Hawke squeezed her way through, regretting every scrape of metal against stone until she emerged at a crossroads, with two other tunnels offering a path forward.

Oh, damn. Was it left or right?

Halfway through her decision to flip a coin, something struck Hawke hard on the back of the head.

\--

"I should clip your ears for knocking her out, boy."

"Everyone said she was dead, boss! What are the chances of finding the real Hawke skulking about our tunnels when-"

Hawke blinked, the dark fog of unconsciousness fading to the amber blur of a barely lit room. Her skull ached something fierce, and the inside of her mouth felt like the sun-side of the Hissing Wastes. She reflexively reached for her sword, but two things happened at once; her muscles ached in protest, and Athenril was standing right in front of her.

"Astrid," the elf whispered, as if speaking too loud would banish her back to the Fade.

At the moment, it felt that dire. Somehow, Hawke managed a smile. "Hey."

"You look like hell." In the guttering light, Athenril's face was razor-sharp, the green of her eyes reflecting the gold of a low torch. She hadn't changed at all, but she looked as tired as Hawke felt, weary to the bone.

"I might have brought some of it back with me," Hawke croaked.

Her first instinct was to apologize, but _sorry_ was a terrible word that never held enough weight in the right moments. The rest wanted to cry, to collapse at Athenril's feet and hug the elf tight to be sure she was real, that this wasn't some illusion conjured up by the Nightmare pushing deep into her mind.

But it felt impossible to move, looking into Athenril's eyes, because that warmth was still there in the very center, the glow that only ever appeared for her.

"Get out," Athenril snapped, and it took Hawke a second to realize the comment was directed towards the smuggler that had clocked her in the skull. He dragged the door shut behind him; they were alone.

Silence stretched like gossamer between them before Athenril said, "Everyone's been telling me you were dead."

"They weren't far off," Hawke admitted. "I was in the Fade."

Athenril cupped her cheek, calloused thumb painting a slow curve down the path of her jaw. "You don't have to tell me. It can wait."

If that gentle touch hadn't made her collapse, the words would have. Hawke shuddered as tension bled out of her body. There was still too many parts of her that had yet to unclench, waiting for the Nightmare to rise up out of a dark corner and drag her back to that numb, starving excuse for reality. She didn't want to talk about it, not now.

To think Athenril still knew her so well. They had fought before she left for Skyhold, and real anger burned in the elf's eyes then.

_"You give yourself up to the rest of the world, and what does it give you in return? The only way we survive is keeping what matters close and safe!"_

The world had taken so much from Hawke. Her father, brother, and mother, so many friends lost or killed. Even Varric wasn't here, when she had always seen him as the heart of Kirkwall. Swept away in the maelstrom of the Inquisition, he would be a hero in a hundred tales, instead of the one smiling when he shared them.

"Can I stay?" Hawke whispered, not trusting her own voice. "Are we-"

Athenril's hand slid to the nape of Hawke's neck, through choppy black hair, and pulled her close, face against the curve of her shoulder. Her lover smelled like leather and sweat, the copper tinge of blood, but it was a blessing after so long in the Fade, cut off from every sense--even memory. Down in a musty, half-lit tunnel, Hawke remembered what 'home' might be like.

"You think I'm letting you go again?" Rough fingertips stroked dark curls, drawing slow, invisible circles. "If I wanted that, I would have had that boy drop you outside that old manor of yours. It's my turn to be selfish."

There was nothing Hawke wanted more. She wrapped her arms around Athenril's back, clutching tight. "I'm so tired."

"And you reek of the tunnels," Athenril added with a soft chuckle. "I might have enough water in my quarters to give you a bath."

"What if you don't?" Hawke asked, smiling against worn leather.

"You can go out dancing naked next time it rains. That's one way to get your name back on everyone's lips."

"I'd much rather be an anonymous smuggler again," she muttered.

Athenril pulled back enough for Hawke to see the ember of warmth in her eyes. "That's what I thought."

Even with Kirkwall in rough shape, the war must have been good for business. Athenril moved from hideaway to hideaway depending on where security was lightest, but her room was actually furnished this time, with enough dust and wear to prove it had been that way for a while. The bronze tub she dragged out from beneath the bed had a few dings in it, but was otherwise untouched.

"Get that armor off," Athenril said, then disappeared from the room, presumably to fetch the water.

Hawke winced while pulling off her breastplate, trying to keep it away from the swollen bruising on the back of her head. She was down to her smallclothes when Athenril came back in, and the other woman's attention immediately settled on Hawke's wrist.

"That survived the Fade?" Athenril drew her fingertips through the carved feathers like a set of chimes. "Maybe I should have made an honest living as a crafter."

The comment sparked a chuckle. "You would be bored by noontime."

"Mm, true enough." She raised up a stained silver ewer, then raised an eyebrow. "Now get in there. This is going to cool off."

Hawke obeyed with a slightly staggered step; being cold-cocked when she'd just gotten her land legs back hadn't done any favors. "Heated water? I'm being spoiled."

"Hush."

The rag Athenril used to wash her was thin, so ragged that Hawke felt the warmth and pressure of her hand through every pass. It sluiced away the sticking salt from both sweat and sea, and marked every scar with a soft touch. Some nights, Hawke had nightmares about being stitched together, held together by a thousand bloody threads. Drinking made it worse, and if she had woken up alone instead of next to Athenril, well...

Hawke let that thought drift away with the spill of water down her skin. She made it back, made it to Athenril. Hidden in the walls, from the rest of the world, she didn't have to be anyone: she simply had to be here.

"Astrid."

She startled a little, realizing belatedly that Athenril had said her name more than once. "Yeah? Sorry."

"Don't be." Athenril dropped the rag down into the tub with a light splash. "Get out and come to bed. You look like you're staring at ghosts."

In a way, she had been. Death had stepped close so many times, slivers of her spirit had left with it. Athenril never expected her to be intact, to come back whole, because they were both piecemeal people, surviving on what remained.

The sheets on Athenril's bed were unfamiliar, but they held her lover's scent, and that was enough. Hawke sprawled on her back against them, looking up at Athenril, haunted and hurt. She had no idea what to say.

_I love you_ is what spilled out, and Athenril kissed her in return, harder than she ever had before. It made her mouth ache until a salve was whispered against it: "I love you too, Astrid."

A beat. "Even if you do your damndest to drive me mad."

"It's a Hawke family trait," she admitted with a wary laugh.

Athenril raised a brow. "I'll have to ask your sister about that."

Hawke opened her mouth to say that she had no idea where Bethany was, that there was so much left undone and she couldn't bear doing more, but what escaped was Athenril's name, weak and full of need.

"Later," Athenril murmured, and kissed her again. "Tonight's ours."

If she never owned anything else again, Hawke would still be grateful for those twilight hours, wrapped up in the arms of the woman who carried her through the dark.

\--


End file.
